Best Metallica lyrics are available below. A short Metallica biography, including some interesting facts we uncovered, is here for your enjoyment as well.
Metallica
Metallica’s musical roots take the band back to a newspaper advertisement in the classifieds in 1981. Founding members James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich met through an ad Ulrich had place in a local Los Angeles newspaper. Throughout their thirty year musical career Ulrich and Hetfield have remained the only two consistent members of the band.
The band has had two lead guitar players throughout their careers. Dave Mustaine, now the guitarist and vocalist for Megadeath, was the first guitar player for Metallica but was eventually excused from the band due to alcoholic tendencies. He was replaced by Kirk Hammett, who has played with the band since he took over the lead guitar duties in 1983. Metallica has gone through four bass players since their founding. Ron McGovney was the first bass player but was quickly replaced by Cliff Burton who would play bass and sing backing vocals on the band’s first three studio albums. Cliff Burton tragically lost his life in a car accident involving Metallica’s touring vehicle in 1986. Jason Newsted was selected from hundreds of possible replacements to take over bass and backing vocals duties and served as Metallica’s longest running bass player to date with his playing from 1986 to 2001. Bob Rock, Metallica’s long time producer, provided bass for the band during the next two years until ultimately current bass player and replacement Robert Trujillo was selected.
Metallica, along with Anthrax, Megadeath, and Slayer, is considered one of the big four bands that helped define and create thrash metal. The band is credited by many metal and rock bands today as being a major influence in their musical directions. In 2000, the band’s legacy also took a hit as they were one of the major plaintiffs against Napster, a music download service. The band’s claim was they were owed royalties for thousands of downloads of their songs without their permission. The Napster case would hurt the band’s reputation and lead to changes in the online music downloading practices for the future.
The band’s first four albums were all considered heavy thrash metal and gained a large following around the world amongst metal fans. In 1991, the band released its self titled album to critical and commercial success as well. The album was the first Metallica cd to reach number one on the US album charts. The Black Album as it is commonly referred to led the band in a new musical direction and helped them gain a new audience as they appealed to a wider range of rock and metal fans.
In their thirty years Metallica have put out nine studio albums, along with live cds, cds with all cover songs, and their newest release Lulu where the band collaborates with legendary musician Lou Reed. The band’s studio albums include:
-Kill ‘Em All-1983
-Ride the Lightning-1984
-Master of Puppets-1986
-…And Justice for All-1988
-Metallica-1991
-Loard-1996
-ReLoad-1997
-St. Anger-2003
-Death Magnetic-2008
It is reported that the band has sold over 100 million copies of their albums around the World. The majority of those sales, sixty six million, have came at home in the United States.
